Waiting for Yesterday One time me and AnJa were like "LET'S START A BAND" so then we were like "we better write some songs!" so we sat down and turned out this piece o' crap with the intent that we would, like, "fix" it later.

Protest Song This would be from somewhere around 7th or 8th grade since that was my era of overbearing pacifism. It's technically untitled and I never gave it a tune or nothin'. So it's just a bad, overbearingly pacifist poem.

Evil Song This probably comes from circa 7th grade. I never finished it nor gave it a real title.

Identity 8th grade assignment. We were meant to emulate the style of another poem about some guy saying he would rather be a weed than a flower.

Inside Me Another 8th grade formula poem XP This particular one was for inclusion in one of those "About Me" projects they always assign in GT English o_o()()()

me or the world A poem from 8th grade NOT actually written for an assignment, though I did include it in the project I was meant to do between 8th and 9th grades rather than writing a new poem ;o I was doped up on decongestants at the time I wrote this, and it shows. GO DRUG USE straight edge 4 lyfe

Marah Adnah 8th grade. The rhyme scheme isn't quite flawless because this was intended to be a song (in which you can use tune and stuff to ameliorate rhythm problems and stuff). It's even got a tune, sort of.

Ad Asperum per Astra I thought "Ad Astra per Asperum" meant "from the mud to the stars" so I flipped it and felt clever and thought I had something called "from the stars to the mud." But what it actually says is "into difficulty through a star." 8th grade, by the way.

Under the Sun For 8th grade Red Ribbon week. The theme was something about the future, so I basically eschewed the whole anti-drug point we were supposed to be making and wrote this instead. Because Ecclesiastes is cool.

Crying to the Sky 8th grade JOLLINESS. For the Reflections contest, with the theme "Suddenly, you turn around and... " Ha ha ha ha. Yeah, I won something, actually. How messed up is that? This was inspired by the movie Head (and "Porpoise Song," the theme song of said movie).

To the Patriots I think the assignment was to write an apostrophe or something (but we hadn't learned the term 'apostrophe' in the poetic sense back then), or maybe I just wrote this as an apostrophe because I'm strange. 8th grade. Man I was an anti-war freak. This and a couple other things were sent off to a contest by my teacher, and then they came back and this poem said "BEST" across the top in very formal writing. Creepy. (The other stuff I sent didn't say "BEST," which I guess is why I didn't win.)

The Fool in His Heart 9th grade English assigment in which we had to use descriptive words and adjectives from... Hemingway. Isn't that kind of like being forced to put together a concrete narrative using phrases from Faulkner? In any case, I don't know what I was aiming for with the weird spaces, but there it is.

Winter Part of our exam in 9th grade English; we listened to the "Winter" movement from Vivaldi's Four Seasons and wrote down image words and stuff, then used those to write a poem.

Eyes in the Mirror I'm actually 5'2" and have been since 7th grade. However, I was under the impression that I was 5'1" for a couple years because of a faulty height-measure-thingy at this one doctor's office. This was 9th grade, and, naturally, we were doing an "About Me" project in English.

Like Earth's Blood I wrote it in 9th grade, but I can't remember why. A couple people in my English class liked it and actually asked for copies. Anyway, I *do* like rhyming poetry... but it's better if it's... like... .... better ...

Angel Smile Nineff grade. It sort of accompanies my FF7 fic and is about Aeris from Cloud's perspective. However, my English teacher and her family were not aware that it was inspired by a video game so they psychoanalysed me and figured out that I had lost a friend and was angry at God. Yeeeah.

astlyr 10th grade creative writing about that Viking chick Astlyr who was going to die and then come back as an embodiment of Death. I drew an accompanying picture, but I don't know where it is. Chris and Kat said this poem sounded like it was about my mistress. .... I guess I'll let her know. My mistress. Kat and Chris are weird.

Glass out of the Moon More Creative Writing. I got part of the idea from this awesome poem called "Overheard on a Saltmarsh," which was pretty much the only poem that didn't suck in a poetry compilation called Reflections on a Gift of Watermelon Pickle. The rest was probably inspired by whatever was going on in the sim I was in at the time or something.

One Window It's actually about choosing between the telly and the outdoors. (For creative writing, of course.)

Archetype 11th grade. This and the next two, I just sat down and wrote really quickly one night. If you look at the concept of biological macroevolution, everything started out as being exactly the same, and since then, things have steadily been becoming more and more different from every other thing. Which is what this is about. Microcosmically.

Absolutism On the nature of an ordered universe. I myself am not actually the narrator. For some reason, people always assume first-person poetry is autobiographical, though they don't do that with prose writings.

Breadth of a Starless Twilight About the sun and the moon which I decided to write one night when I was outside waiting for mum to pick me up from somewhere and the sky seemed really light though I didn't see the moon or stars and it didn't appear to be cloudy. I won $100 in a contest with this, in spite of its awkward composition.

Eternity and the Mirror I always like this one enough that I don't trash it, but don't like it enough to actually *like* it. Inspired by the last episodes of Utena, the final battle of FFIX, and some stuff that happened in a sim. And a painting. 11th grade.

Noblest and Most Beautiful Juri and Ruka with a side of Shiori. There are parts of it I like and parts that I'm like "oh geez." But no amount of editing has solved this problem.

i never broke my shell Black Rose Wakaba. I had the lines all aligned either left, middle, or right (and the actual content of the lines did have something to do with which one they got), but with the new, thinner layout, it's hard to tell which are which ^^() A problem I did not foresee. I FIXED IT.

Inversion Canticle Rounding out this collection of Utena poetry is one for Saionji and Anthy. More problems with the thin layout obstructing the recognisability of the actual shape of the stanzas, but beehhh XP There've been line break troubles all along, I know. *shrug* Well, I'll know to try to avoid those if/when I ever make another layout. I am humourous! I'M AWESOME.

Retarded Ballad The (retarded) ballad of Gregorio Cortez. It's so bad I wasn't going to post it, but IF IT'S ON THE HARD DRIVE. I *was* forced to write it in 11th grade. However, I think the last line of the second stanza might serve to *somewhat* justify this aweful thing's existence.

The Power and the Glory theme poetry Part of the assignment between 11th and 12th grade, to write some poems pertaining to the themes of The Power and the Glory. I really didn't feel like doing them, but they might have been good if I had ... umm... written them... better.

Deterioration as a Series of Little-Deaths We were meant to write a poem about loss, and she suggested making it more concrete than not, since high schoolers often seem to think that the more abstract a poem is, the better. To comply with that, I wrote about myself actually *losing* something (like a paper, or my wallet, or something), but it didn't turn out being... very.. er, concrete. Still, it really is about the way I feel when I've lost some important object and am looking for it.

There have been very few Messiahs This was for 12th grade English somewhere, but I don't remember the exact assignment. OH it was Reflections. The theme was courage or something? I can't remember. Anyhoo I only actually *like* the third and fourth couplets, but four lines seemed a little short for a poem I was going to be graded on.

Maps I don't remember the assignment. A poem. Like about. Umm. I don't know. Anyway, it's dedicated to Hans and Squizzle. :o